


stay with me until i sleep

by nettlestingsoup



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Addiction, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Nightmares, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23266492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nettlestingsoup/pseuds/nettlestingsoup
Summary: The Frontier Spaceport has been Hyunjin's home for years, and it has everything he needs: stallholders requiring his translation services, a vast array of bars and clubs to keep him occupied. Access to the stimulants that prevent him from sleeping, keeping his nightmares at bay.But he can only manage on his own for so long. And when a stranger offers him little black pills that might just keep him from falling apart at the seams, Hyunjin can't say no.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Hwang Hyunjin
Comments: 55
Kudos: 127





	1. chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I've been stuck in quarantine for seven days and instead of working on tying up the last of my OT9 content, I wrote nearly 14,000 words of ChanJin.
> 
> Updates daily!

_Hyunjin was under the floor._

_He was curled up tight, the space too small for his limbs, muscles cramping as he tried to avoid letting his knee press against the pipe beside him. It would burn him, and he would scream._

_And then they would all die._

_He whimpered, and the hand over his mouth pressed harder._

_He couldn’t move._

_He couldn’t breathe._

_He couldn’t make a sound._

_The boards above him creaked._

Hyunjin sat up in bed, gasping for air. He was in his room. He was sprawled out on his bed in the tower of the Frontier Spaceport, breathing hard, shoulders aching with a phantom pain of being cramped into so tight a space.

He groaned, rubbing his face and cursing himself for letting this happen. He’d missed his dose of stims earlier that day, too busy rushing around the Robotics Quarter, and he’d twitched and twitched and twitched until he lay down, exhausted, at which point he’d promptly fallen asleep.

With shaking hands, he ripped open a packet of the neon orange tablets, not checking how many he was taking. He wasn’t sure it mattered. If they were going to kill him, they would have done it by now. He’d been taking them for six years, after all.

Hyunjin knew, logically, that the chemicals in the stims designed to mimic the state of the brain in sleep weren’t perfect. Weren’t really enough for a person to survive on without going insane. But hey, he’d made it this far. He just had to keep going.

He put the packet down. Picked it up. Took another three pills for good measure.

No more sleep. Not if he could help it.

He crossed the room, peering through his blinds at the dome that simulated a sky; it was more of a haze over the stars, blurring them white or deep red depending on whether it was supposed to be day or night. In all honesty, Hyunjin thought it was mostly for the benefit of the plants, the vines that crept over every building and handrail here. It was the thing that Hyunjin had been most surprised by, when he had first arrived; that a spaceport would smell like a forest, green always visible beneath the glitching dome to keep the human occupants sane.

The ‘sky’ was red right now, simulating nighttime, and Hyunjin could see the neon glow of the bars rising like a heat haze from the walkways. He’d get a drink, he decided, as if it was any decision at all. It was what he did every night; dress up and dance and drink whatever he could pronounce from the menu (or something he couldn’t, if something non-human was buying), forgetting everything he could until the dome faded to peach and pink and finally white, the false daylight a sign that it was time for another packet of bright orange pills.

Sorting through his wardrobe, Hyunjin pulled out a shirt he knew flowed nicely against his skin, the collar high and ruffled and laughably chaste given how the fabric turned see-through beneath neon lights. His makeup didn’t take him long; he’d never understood the elaborate curls and flicks common to human makeup these days. Perhaps it was to make them look alien, although given their obsession with purity of blood, he doubted it. Hyunjin kept it minimal, lining his eyes with just enough soft cobalt blue to make the depths of them shine, followed by a powder designed to make his skin. It was enough, he thought.

His usual bar was closed for some reason, the bright pink sign dim enough that Hyunjin could barely make out the image of a Cheshire cat grin. He sighed. Time to find somewhere else, he supposed.

He saw it out the corner of his eye.

A little door, across the street. A flickering sign, the same electric purple as the shine of bismuth crystals, shaped like a simple crescent moon.

A few people headed in as he watched, draped in shining jewellery, laughing in a way that suggested they’d already been drinking for some time.

Hyunjin caught the door before it closed, and followed them in. The stairwell was lit in the same shade of brilliant violet, little strips of neon caged in spacesuit helmets that wouldn’t fit any species Hyunjin recognised; it shone out of their visors, and Hyunjin kept his gaze on the back of the couple ahead of him to alleviate the sensation of being watched.

The main room of the club, when he finally reached the bottom of the stairs, was like nothing he’d ever seen. It was dimmer than the stairwell had been, whole spacesuits hanging from the ceiling from their throats like macabre chandeliers, a dim glow of a colour Hyunjin couldn’t quite place shining from the seams. Metal booths lined the walls, smoke curling from each as if they were lit with some kind of internal fire, spilling onto the dancefloor and wrapping around the ankles of those dancing; Hyunjin didn’t know the origin of the music, either. It sounded almost human, a slow beat and electronic hum, but the rhythms made him dizzy when he tried to follow them. He’d get a drink, he decided, and sit down. See if he wanted to stay here.

Hyunjin didn’t recognise half the drinks on the menu, but he was used to that; it came hand in hand with living somewhere very few humans chose to occupy, after all. He pointed at one without really reading what was in it, taking the bartender’s lack of reaction to mean that he’d made a sensible choice. Paying with a vague flick of his card, he wandered away towards a booth with the tall, warped glass he’d been given, and sat down. The seats weren’t uncomfortable, at least, but another helmet sat in the centre of the table, radiating heat. That was where the smoke was coming from, he supposed.

"You look tired." The voice came from beside him, and Hyunjin turned to see a man sliding into the booth next to him. Hyunjin sighed. He normally spent longer somewhere before this happened. Perhaps it was because he was new. Fresh meat.

Hyunjin took a closer look at the stranger, giving him that credit at least. He was dressed in a shade of violet that matched his eyes, deep as perfume, and something about him _crackled_ as he moved. Nebulous was the word that came to mind, Hyunjin decided.

"I am," Hyunjin said simply, and the man smiled.

"You don’t sleep," he said, and the shade of those eyes, the way the pupils swallowed them almost completely, the sparks of fuchsia when he moved, stirred some kind of memory in Hyunjin’s mind.

"And you’re Cerilian," he remarked. The man smiled wider, revealing slightly pointed teeth behind full lips. Cerilians. _Dream-eaters_. Haunting spaceport walkways as night fell, coating the ships and stalls and steel in deep, violet fog as they waited for the occupants to fall asleep so that they could feed. There was nothing malicious about them, as far as Hyunjin knew, but they were the source of every childhood horror story. They’d steal more than your dreams, people whispered. They’d take your memories. Your soul.

Hyunjin found he had more important things to be afraid of.

"I am," the stranger agreed. "My name’s Chan."

"Hyunjin."

"You smell like nightmares, Hyunjin." Chan’s voice had dropped into something soft and smooth and curious, and Hyunjin found himself a little alarmed by how quickly it put him at ease. Although perhaps that wasn’t the right phrase.

Hyunjin sipped his drink. It was bitter. He’d only bought it because of the picture on the menu, finding it matched the precise shade of blue he was wearing. Sapphire and sky faded together. "I suppose I do," he said lightly, and he didn’t miss the way Chan inhaled a little, bubblegum lightning crackling around his hands for a moment where they rested on the table. "I’d let you have some," Hyunjin offered, "except, as you pointed out, I don’t sleep."

"Stims?"

"An awful lot."

Chan looked at him for a moment. His smile had faded, replaced with an expression Hyunjin couldn’t quite decipher. "I could help you," he said eventually.

"How?"

"Your nightmares are personal, aren’t they? A manifestation of all the things you fear." The shade of his eyes - of the paper-thin rings of iris - deepened to something like black, tainted with a gleam of violet. "The things you’ve seen."

Hyunjin shifted. "What does that have to do with anything?" he asked uncomfortably. He didn’t particularly want to talk about _the things he’d seen_ , as Chan put it.

"You could have someone else’s."

"What?"

"Someone else’s nightmares. To mask your own. To help you sleep."

Hyunjin almost laughed. This was absurd. "And there I was thinking you were going to offer me sweet dreams."

Chan smiled slightly, those sharp, white teeth on display again. "We tend to eat those," he admitted casually. "And they wouldn’t help, anyway. Your nightmares would break through. Sometimes, fear just needs something stronger to push it down. Most people return to normal dreams, after that."

"Fight fire with fire, is that what you’re saying?"

Chan shrugged, electric, and the motion left an image on the back of Hyunjin’s eyelids. "I suppose so," he said. "If you’re interested." He reached into his pocket, pulling out a little black glass bottle and placing it on the table. It rattled when Hyunjin picked it up.

"Pills?"

"Take one before you sleep. Only one."

"How do- this will give me someone’s nightmares?"

"They will."

Hyunjin put the bottle down. "What do I have to pay for them?"

"Nothing, really," Chan said nonchalantly. "I’ll just visit you and take some dreams when I want them."

"Seems cheap."

Chan shrugged. "No one else will be taking them. That’s more what matters, really. But that doesn’t affect you."

"Why?" Hyunjin asked after a moment. "Why are you offering me these?" Generosity, he’d found over the years, was often not to be trusted. Especially when offered by strangers in darkened rooms.

Chan looked at him, violet eyes wide and almost distant. There was something hesitant in them, delicate as the thinnest of ice. "I want to know how they taste," Chan said softly. "Your dreams. I think, beneath all that fear, you might taste… sweet." His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and Hyunjin was put in mind of old earth stories: a vampire, asking for just one bite. There was danger in it, perhaps. In the way Chan looked at him.

Hyunjin thought about his nights. About endless packets of stims, keeping him awake and twitching, eyes itching and aching from the overload of chemicals in his system as he beat his forehead against the wall, telling himself _don’t sleep don’t sleep don’t sleep_. He couldn’t keep going like that.

He couldn’t.

"Fine," he said, reaching for the bottle again. "It’s a deal. You get as many dreams as you like."

"I’m glad. Remember, one a night. No more." Chan smiled, sliding out of the booth. "And I’ll see you soon, Hyunjin."

"Yeah," Hyunjin agreed vaguely, watching those electric fuchsia sparks crackle at Chan’s fingertips as he disappeared into the crowd. "Soon."


	2. chapter two

In his room later that night, Hyunjin turned the little bottle over and over in his fingers, listening to the rattle of the pills inside. There was a little slip of paper in there, too, he noticed, and he pulled the cork to delicately fish it out.

_ Pitch _ , it read in delicate cursive, and the word called up a memory. It had just been a rumour at the time. Gossip. Cerilians, harvesting dreams for some purpose other than food. Stories of vast factories, people kept asleep, their dreams pulled from them like silk. Hyunjin never knew if that last bit had been true, but the first; Cerilians taking dreams and storing them? These little pills, Hyunjin supposed. Nightmares, trapped in a tablet scented of hyacinths and smoke. He tipped one into his hand. It was small, around half the size of his fingernail, and black as, well… pitch.

He turned it over a few times, thinking. Would he have to fall asleep for it to work? It was alien to him, after all this time, the concept of willingly falling asleep. He’d been holding it at bay for so long.  And who knew what this pill contained? Maybe it would be worse than the stims. At least he trusted his source of those.   


He wasn’t sure he trusted Chan. But perhaps, he thought to himself, hunger was more trustworthy than greed. The people who sold stims could put anything they liked in the pills as long as they were addictive and somewhat effective. They’d just keep making money that way. But Chan… Chan had no reason to want to corrupt Hyunjin’s mind with toxic things. Not when he’d asked to feed off his dreams. That would be like pouring poison in his own water, surely?

And the way he’d looked at Hyunjin. The way he’d wondered aloud how he would taste. No, he told himself. Chan had no reason to hurt him.

Settled on his tenuous logic, Hyunjin placed the little pill on his tongue. It was sweet, he found, in the way that the scent of flowers was sweet, aromatic and earthy.

He swallowed it easily, used to years of practice with stims, and wondered just how long it would take to take effect. Would it be instantaneous? Take an hour?

Hyunjin tried to relax, letting himself get comfortable and watching the dome crackle through a gap in his blinds. His heart was beating too fast to sleep, he was sure, from nerves and dancing and whatever had been in the drinks someone had kept buying him.

He fell asleep before he even noticed he’d closed his eyes.

And Hyunjin dreamed. He dreamed of endless forests with no way out, something chasing, always chasing, running but never fast enough, screaming silence into silence, tree branches catching at his skin and holding him.

He dreamed of being underwater, floating slow and languid, bodies pale and bloated and dead beside him, endless corpses between him and the sun.

Of blood pooling around his feet, acrid yellow and stinking as he watched it flow from his mouth without end.

He didn’t dream of spaces under floorboards. Of footsteps above him, a hand over his mouth. Of waiting.

It was the light from the dome that woke him. He rolled over, groggy and disoriented, to check the time. Four hours, he calculated quickly. He’d slept for  _ four hours _ . He hadn’t had that much sleep in over a decade. He shook his head a little, trying to get rid of the lingering horrors. They barely phased him, he found, were nothing compared to the things he would normally dream of.  He sat up, reaching for the little bottle to check just how many of these pills he had. A note rested beside it.

_ You were deep in dreams when I visited. Were they yours? -Chan _

Hyunjin tossed the note aside. Chan had been here, in his room. Had he stood beside Hyunjin’s bed, watching him toss and turn, frowning and crying out from horrors that weren’t his own? Had he fed?  He didn’t know exactly  _ how  _ Cerilians fed, he realised. The image of those white, pointed teeth came to mind, and Hyunjin shivered.

Putting the thought to one side, he tried to summon the euphoria he’d first felt at the idea that he’d  _ slept _ . Now that the blur of sleep was fading, his mind felt sharper than it had in years, unclouded by exhaustion and stimulants. His hands were shaking from the lack of them, he noticed, the addictive effects becoming apparent now that he’d spent a night without them. Hyunjin did his best to ignore it. He could deal with that later.

* * *

Late that evening, he returned to the bar where he’d first met Chan, heading down the violet staircase into the dark. The Cerilian was leaning against the bar, watching the pull and sway of the crowd with a closed, appraising expression. His head tilted a little to the side, the lights highlighting the line of his jaw and the intensity of his gaze, and Hyunjin looked away for a moment. He wasn’t sure why, but something about that  _ stare _ just… caught him off guard.

"Hey," he said as he approached, leaning on the bar beside him, and Chan turned with a slight smile.

"Hey, dreamer," he said, and laughed a little at his own words. "Sleep well?"

"You were in my room; why don’t you tell me?"

Chan paused, looking up at him. "Can I buy you a drink?" he asked eventually.

"Sure."

They settled at a booth a few minutes later, each of them examining a shot glass of something lavender and smoking. "You sure this is safe for humans?" Hyunjin asked, tilting his head towards the table to watch the flickering lights that appeared to be swimming in the drink.

"Yup. Those are just… well. It doesn’t really matter what they are. Swallow them before they sting your tongue." Hyunjin watched as Chan tipped the glass back, trails of lilac light running down the inside of his throat until they disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. He was wearing black tonight, velvet and shot with trails of stardust. Hyunjin followed suit, sighing a little at the sensation of gentle lightning through his torso. It felt like his organs were fizzing, in a somewhat pleasant way.

"You’re human, then?" Chan asked casually.

"Do I not look it?"

"You  _ look  _ human," Chan admitted, circling the rim of his empty glass with a fingertip. "You just don’t come across that way. None of that old Earth arrogance most humans seem to have."

"Colonies," Hyunjin explained briefly. "Never saw Earth."

"Which colony?"

"Buy me another drink."

Chan laughed, throwing his head back. "Ok, ok. It’s a secret. I get it. And, I suppose, it’s not what we’re here to talk about."

"It’s not, really. I wanted to say thank you."

Chan smiled softly, and Hyunjin twitched a little beneath the gentleness of it. Most people who bought him drinks didn’t look at him with anywhere near so much tenderness. "You did sleep well, then? It looked like you were."

Hyunjin nodded. "I had nightmares. But not- not things that scared me. Well, no, they  _ scared _ me, just…"

"Not as much as your own?" Chan finished gently.

"Not as much as my own," Hyunjin confirmed. "They were bad, but…" he looked down at the table. "I’ve- I’ve seen things, Chan, I’ve-" he paused, closing his eyes, focusing on the light behind them. He was safe. He was safe. He was safe. "I know what it is to be afraid. Those nightmares… they’re nothing compared to that."

"That’s how it’s supposed to work," Chan told him. "And I promise you, you’ll be dreaming in no time."

Hyunjin tried to smile. "And that’s when you come in, right? Take your payment?"

"Exactly," Chan said, and the way he smiled as he spoke gave Hyunjin another glimpse of those pointed teeth, brightened by the haze of pink lightning that surrounded him. "Was that all you wanted? To say thank you?"

Hyunjin shrugged. "Pretty much. I’ll see you again anyway, right?"

"You probably will," Chan agreed. "You know, most people don’t thank me."

"I’m not most people."

"No," Chan said slowly. "You’re not, are you?" He had that look in his eyes again, sharp and close and hesitant, and Hyunjin looked down at his empty glass.

"Thanks for the drink," he muttered, pushing back his chair a little. "I should go get some sleep."

"Sweet dreams," Chan said, tone a little teasing, and Hyunjin was sure he felt the Cerilian’s gaze on his back until the forest-scented air of the spaceport walkways hit his skin.

* * *

Back in his flat, Hyunjin felt like he was on fire. He hadn’t realised that he was warm at all until he left the bar, putting the heat down to whatever had been in his drink, but he had quickly realised that this was a feeling he knew all too well. It tended to happen when he missed one too many doses of stims, body crying out for the chemicals it didn’t know how to function without. And now, scrambling through his drawer for the little packets, Hyunjin was  _ burning _ .   


He took ten, ignoring the warnings littering the packet as usual, and paced his flat, clawing at his neck and trying desperately to breathe as the burn reached his lungs. Damn it. Just because he didn’t need the stims to keep him awake anymore didn’t mean he didn’t  _ need _ them. Would they interfere with the effects of Pitch, he wondered? It had sent him off so quickly, obviously containing some form of soporific, and here he was. Swallowing more than twice the recommended dose of something that he knew full well would keep him awake and twitching for hours at a time.   


He collapsed back onto his bed, sweat making his skin itch, and closed his eyes to stop the room spinning. He’d only had withdrawal this bad once before, and he’d gone about four days without the stims back then. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to sleep; more that he just hadn’t cared. He’d sort of wanted to die.

He hadn’t.

But the fact that he could have the same intensity of symptoms after only a day without pills worried him, distantly. How long before he couldn’t even go an hour without a fresh dose? Paying for the things already had him scrambling for money, he couldn’t afford  _ more _ .

Hyunjin had to kick them. Had to slowly reduce his dosage or something, get to a point where his body could cope without chemicals tasting of neon and plastic.   


But not tonight. Tonight, he’d test the limits of exactly how soporific the Pitch could be. See how it handled the sheer volume of adrenaline in his system right now.

Hyunjin reached for the bottle, swallowing a single black pill.

He was asleep in minutes.


	3. chapter three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Hyunjin a lot, I promise; he just has to suffer for the sake of this AU.
> 
> -

When Hyunjin awoke, the note Chan had left at his bedside wasn’t immediately obvious; perhaps because he knocked it to the floor in his haste to get to the bathroom, vomiting bile and acid into the sink. He didn’t feel feverish anymore, he noted as he sank to the floor. Perhaps stims, Pitch, and alien alcohol were just a bad combination.

He threw up again four minutes later, struggling into the shower once he was certain it had passed. The water was bliss against his skin despite the strong smell of chlorine that always came with it, washing away every nightmare that had drifted into his head the previous night. Something with antlers, eyes gleaming in the shadows. A clock of some kind that wouldn’t stop no matter how desperately he tried. A man hanging from the ceiling, split open from throat to navel, lungs still rising and falling as Hyunjin watched from below.

Chan’s note was lying on the carpet when he returned, stark white against the grey. Hyunjin thought he caught a faint pink spark of static between the paper and his fingertips when he picked it up, but it didn’t linger.

_ You didn’t look well when I checked in on you; meet me if you want to talk. _

Hyunjin didn’t. He spent the rest of his day in his flat, hoping his usual shops didn’t need any translation work today; it was his usual pastime, hanging around the Robotics or Floral quarter, stepping in to work out disputes when a translation device was a little too  _ literal _ for the process of inter-species haggling. Sometimes the stallholders would pay him, other times just buy him a meal or let him pick what he wanted (within reason) from their stalls. It worked.

Despite his promise to himself, he took three more doses of stims throughout the day, doing very little except lie in a patch of simulated sunlight cutting across his floor, and intermittently run to the bathroom to vomit. When the dome outside faded to a dark orange, he reached for the bottle of Pitch and collapsed into bed with the pill still dissolving on his tongue.

* * *

Chan was sitting on his desk when he opened his eyes. He looked less human than ever, violet seeping into the whites of his eyes, sparks crackling like an aura around him. When he opened his mouth to speak, his teeth looked too big for his lips and tongue. Hyunjin found he was more than a little terrified.

"Are you ok?" Chan asked as if nothing was wrong. "You looked ill last night, and then you didn’t show, and…" he examined Hyunjin carefully, concern somehow touching those alien eyes. "You  _ still _ look ill."

"Compatibility problem," Hyunjin croaked. "Gonna be sick." He lurched out of bed, ignoring the way Chan followed him into the bathroom until he felt a hand on his back, rubbing soothing circles as he vomited. Hyunjin waved him away vaguely, not wanting a near-stranger to see him like this. But Chan stayed, hovering by his side and filling up a glass of water for him. Hyunjin watched the Cerilian’s reflection behind his own, those nightshade-dark eyes tracing over the hollows of Hyunjin’s cheekbones, the sheen of sweat on his skin.

"Compatibility problem?" he asked as Hyunjin took shaky sips of water.

Hyunjin nodded. "The stims," he admitted. "I think… I’ve been taking way too many for a while now." He sighed. Letting his head fall forwards against the mirror. "I don’t think they get on well with the stuff you gave me. And I can’t stop taking them. Withdrawal."

"Oh," Chan said softly. It sounded like he pitied him. Hyunjin couldn’t quite bring himself to hate it. "I could help."

Hyunjin couldn’t stop himself from laughing. "How? More pills?"

"No."

"How, then?"

"I’ll stay with you, today. Let me know when the symptoms get bad and I can fix it."

Hyunjin turned to look at him properly, pushing the nausea down for a moment. "You can  _ fix it _ ?" he asked. "How?"

Chan looked away for a moment. "I’m sure you know the rumours," he said slowly. "Of my kind forcing people to sleep so we can feed on them. It’s not- it’s based in truth."

"That’s your solution?" Hyunjin asked weakly. "Put me to sleep? Your pills do that just fine."

"No, but- I can calm you, Hyunjin. Slow you down a little. It might help with the withdrawal if your body isn’t fighting so hard."

Hyunjin thought about it for a second. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt, to let Chan help. It had worked the first time, with some unpleasant side effects; Hyunjin had slept three nights in a row. He had  _ slept _ . And if Chan thought he could help, could get him off the stims… maybe it was worth it.

"You can try," he said, "but right now I’m gonna be sick again."

And Chan stayed with him, one hand on his back again and on pushing his fringe away from his sweat-soaked forehead, making soothing noises beside his ear.

Hyunjin didn’t think anyone had been so gentle with him since his mother died.

He tried not to think about that too hard

* * *

"Why do you look like that today?" he asked once Chan had been with him for an hour or so. They hadn’t talked much, most of the time occupied by Hyunjin being sick or staring into space, twitching faintly. But he was fairly lucid for the moment, and Chan’s appearance had been unsettling him for a while.

"Like what?"

"Like a villain out of a kids’ show."

Chan’s eyes widened in surprise. The expression was oddly innocent given the odd, macabre way his irises seemed to be bleeding into the whites, magenta sparks still blurring Hyunjin’s vision. "Oh. Because I fed recently, I suppose. When we’re hungry, we… blend in. It’s automatic. We adjust to the appearance of nearby species. It’s a predation technique, I suppose. Camouflage."

"Oh," Hyunjin said vaguely. "So this is you… not camouflaged?"

"I suppose it is. I’d never thought anything of it."

"No, I suppose you wouldn’t," Hyunjin agreed. His stomach cramped painfully, and he stumbled to his feet. "I’m- Chan-" He wasn’t sure why his first instinct was to call out to him, rather than simply say that he was going to be sick, but Chan was by his side in an instant, holding him by the shoulders and guiding him across the room to the bathroom without a word.

"Sorry," Hyunjin muttered after he’d washed his face. "This isn’t what you signed up for when you gave me those pills, huh?"

"No one ever gets what they sign up for," was Chan’s only reply, and Hyunjin offered him a shaky smile. Chan smiled back, white teeth gleaming. He looked pretty like this, Hyunjin thought, once you got past the horror of it. Like he was made of stars, shades of pink and purple blurring together into a luminous cloud of dust.

"Hyunjin? Hyunjin, you’re-" Chan steadied him before he could fall completely, legs going weak as his vision blurred, and Hyunjin laughed as he was lowered gently to the floor. "Why are you laughing?"

"Because I would- if you weren’t here- I would have-" he paused to take a breath, struggling to get his words out. "I would have  _ brained myself  _ on the fucking  _ sink _ ." He descended into laughter again after that, ignoring Chan’s sharp inhale.

"You’re burning up, Hyunjin, you’re-"

"Yeah," Hyunjin hiccoughed. He didn’t know why he found this so  _ funny _ . Perhaps it was psychosis. He was due that, probably. "It does this."

"These are the symptoms you’ve been getting?" Chan asked, obviously a little scared. "A fever and hysteria?"

"Not- not that last one," Hyunjin choked out, still giggling. "This is- new." His skin was starting to itch, he realised, and yet again he felt a kind of distant horror at how quickly this had come on. He’d been fine. Sick, but fine.

"Ok," Chan murmured. "Let’s see what we can do, shall we?" He lifted Hyunjin a little to shift his head into Chan’s lap, hands mercifully cool against his skin when he placed his palms on Hyunjin’s temples. "Just stay relaxed for me, ok?"

Hyunjin kept laughing, trying to stay as still as possible despite the persistent kick his right leg seemed to have developed, slamming his bare foot against the cheap tiles of his wall over and over again as Chan shushed him gently.

Pink lightning crackled at the edges of his vision, blinding him intermittently.

The world narrowed down to the burn of his skin and the itch and the dull, repetitive thud of his foot against the tile.

"It’s ok," Chan said softly. "It’s ok."

And slowly, Hyunjin felt himself still. His leg fell limp to the floor, lungs aching as he began to breathe evenly again.

"Oh," he said softly. "Oh."

"Better?" Chan asked, and Hyunjin just  _ sighed _ in response. It had been so long since he’d felt anything close to normal. Not even his fingers were twitching.

His eyes were closing, too, he realised, and he struggled to pull himself up, almost smashing his forehead into Chan’s jaw. " Don’t… I’m falling asleep. Don’t let me… fall asleep. Not taken it yet." He yawned. "Can’t sleep until I’ve… taken it."

"Sorry," Chan muttered. "I suppose I overdid it a little. Come on. If you can stand, I’ll get you to bed."

"Not… I need to take…"

"I know," Chan said close to his ear. "I’ll help you, ok? But we can’t do anything from the bathroom floor."

Step by step, Chan guided Hyunjin back to bed, grabbing the glass bottle and holding out a pill for Hyunjin to take. When he didn’t respond, Hyunjin felt Chan gently take hold of his jaw, opening his mouth and pushing the pill onto his tongue.

Hyunjin lost track of what happened after that.


	4. chapter four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jisung's here! Only a little cameo, but it just felt right to include him in this.

Chan stayed with him for two more days. He only shrugged when Hyunjin asked him if he had anything better to do, and Hyunjin didn’t ask again. He didn’t particularly want Chan to leave, after all; he kept soothing Hyunjin’s twitches and aches, the burn in his skin, humming softly to calm him when he did so. There was something about it, an odd kind of intimacy that Hyunjin didn’t really want to address. No one had ever seen him like this; at his worst, coming apart at every seam. But here Chan was, all dark eyes and gentle hands, holding him together.   


When the symptoms weren’t bad, they talked, dodging over the subject of Hyunjin’s past multiple times in favour of more inane topics; life in space, the flowers outside the window, the number of species present on the spaceport. It was... nice. Hyunjin hadn’t had company like this in a very long time.

He decided not to question why Chan was so intent on helping him. As long as he didn’t know, he saw no reason for it to end.

" Is that all you’ve been eating?" Chan asked as he watched Hyunjin melt yet another ration bar into something that vaguely resembled soup.

Hyunjin shrugged. "It’s got all the nutrients I need, and I’ve got a good stash of them."

"Don’t humans like variety when it comes to food?"

"Sure, but this is convenient."

"Or we could go outside," Chan suggested. "It might do you some good."

Hyunjin paused. "Are you bored?" he asked after a moment, suddenly aware of just how much time Chan had spent with him in his little flat. "You don’t have to stay, you know. I’ll be fine on my own for a few hours."

"I’m not bored. But I think you are. Humans need varied stimuli, right?"

Hyunjin sighed, looking down at the bubbling brown goo in the pan. "You talk about me like I’m a rat," he grumbled. "But yeah, I guess. Come on, I know a place I can maybe get a free meal."

* * *

He led Chan to the Floral Quarter, ducking under endless wreaths and drapes of flowers to reach his favourite stall. It was hidden away in a corner, away from the dizzying scents and colours of the rest of the area, shrouded in a cloth with holes torn in various places to allow patches of sunlight to shine through for the plants that wanted it. Jisung always sold strange little things, nothing so dull as flowers, and he appeared to be engaged in something of an argument with a young couple as Hyunjin and Chan approached.

"You think I’m lying to you? This is genuine, from Ghrah, and you’re telling me it doesn’t look real?"

Hyunjin listened for a moment, ignoring Chan’s faintly amused expression, and stepped in behind the couple, smiling amicably. "He’s saying it’s the wrong colour, Jisung. It doesn’t look  _ right _ ."

Jisung stared at him for a moment as though he’d appeared out of thin air, the feathers sprouting from his hairline ruffling indignantly and reflecting the same iridescent blue as his eyes. "Well," he said. "That’s no excuse to be so rude. If he wants a different colour for his lovely beau, I can get him a different colour. What colour would you like, sir?"

Chan laughed as Hyunjin returned to his side to watch the rest of the transaction, everything running smoothly past the original hurdle.

"I’m impressed," he said with a sharp-toothed smile.

Hyunjin shrugged. "Don’t be. This is basically my job, except no one really hires me."

"No, they don’t," Jisung agreed as he wandered over, the young couple happily leaving with a delicate yellow vine in hand. It appeared to be biting one of them, but Hyunjin couldn’t see that they minded hugely. "You just show up like magic when we need you." He cocked his head sharply, the angle too large to be anything but avian, and his feathers rippled. "Not lately, though. I could have done with your help a few times, but no one’s seen hide nor hair of you."

"I’ve been sick," Hyunjin explained vaguely. He thought that just about covered it.

Jisung eyed Chan suspiciously. "And a Cerilian friend, hm?"

"He won’t hurt you," Hyunjin said.

"I won’t," Chan agreed. "I’m here for him." Jisung bristled a little at that, and Hyunjin couldn’t help but laugh.

"Well, since you’re here," Jisung told him, now ignoring Chan’s presence completely, "I’ve been saving this." He reached into a pocket of his apron, pulling out a little ceramic disk. "It’s for the stall across the way. You know the one, right?"

Hyunjin grinned. "I was really hoping you’d have something like this. Thanks, Jisung."

Jisung fluttered again, avoiding his eyes. He didn’t like admitting that he cared, Hyunjin knew, but it was a sweet gesture to save a food token for him just in case he turned up. " Well, go on!" he snapped. "Go put some meat on your bones, you need it. And next time you disappear for days, you’ll have to stomach my home cooking instead."

"I’m sure you’re a wonderful cook, Jisung."

"Oh, I am. Just not for humans. You’re cowards, you kill things  _ before  _ you eat them."

Hyunjin waved as he wandered away, laughing, Chan just behind him. "He gave you a food token?" Chan asked.

"Yeah. A good one, too, I like this place." He turned, looking at Chan curiously. "I’ve been meaning to ask, actually. How do you- Cerilians- eat? You have super sharp teeth, do you like… bite people?"

Chan laughed. "No," he said, "we don’t. We just… feel it. I don’t know how to explain it to someone who eats physically." He frowned, obviously considering it, and Hyunjin realised he looked unnervingly human today. His pupils had constricted to an almost normal size, the iris a delicate lavender grey. He must be hungry. "It’s like when humans say they gain energy from talking to other humans, I suppose. After watching someone’s dreams, I feel… energised. More myself. Stronger."

"Fair enough."

Hyunjin ordered as much food as the token would allow him, planning on taking it home and eking it out over a few days. The two of them wandered over to a bench as the dome began to darken to pink, Chan watching the streets clear of people little by little as Hyunjin ate.

"Is it good?" he asked after a few minutes of silence. Hyunjin nodded happily, and Chan leaned a little closer. "You’ve- it’s sugar, or something, you-"

"What?" Hyunjin asked. Chan’s response was to lean in, one hand gentle on the back of Hyunjin’s neck to hold him still, as he ran his thumb over Hyunjin’s lower lip, trying to dislodge whatever it was he could see. "Is it gone?" Hyunjin asked softly, suddenly far too aware of Chan’s proximity. His heart was beating in his ears, skin tingling as though he’d just taken half a packet of stims.

Chan frowned. "No," he muttered, and before Hyunjin could try to do anything about it himself, Chan had leaned in and licked a stripe over his lower lip, pulling away and sitting back in his seat once the offending sugar was gone. Hyunjin sat in complete silence for a moment, unsure of how to react until he faked a slight laugh to disguise the fact that he was shaking a little.

"Either you know nothing about human etiquette, Chan, or you know everything about human etiquette and you did that on purpose."

Chan grinned. "I suppose my answer to that depends on your thoughts on it," Chan said, and he kept speaking before Hyunjin could reply. "But I have to go. Tonight, I mean. I can’t stay." He ran his tongue over his lower lip, and Hyunjin couldn’t tell if he was tasting sugar there. "I haven’t fed in a while, and you- your dreams are still a little unstable, Hyunjin, I don’t want to break the balance you’ve found." He breathed in, eyes turning dark for a moment. "There are new people on the Frontier, too. A lot of them, and they’re all  _ dreaming _ , Hyunjin, and I-"

"Go get a snack," Hyunjin said, kicking his ankle gently. "But you’ll-" he stopped for a moment. "It’s not permanent, right? You going away?" His voice was smaller than he’d wanted it to be, and the depth of the sweetness in Chan’s eyes when he turned to face him was a little too much to bear.

"No," Chan said gently. "It’s not permanent. I’ll be back by tomorrow night if I can." He shifted, then, moving a little closer on the bench, and for a moment Hyunjin thought he was going to lean in and actually kiss him. The thought panicked him somehow, despite everything that had already passed between them, and he stood, looking up at the reddening sky.

"I’ll see you, then," he said weakly, avoiding Chan’s eyes.

"Yeah," Chan replied. He sounded… flat. As though he were disappointed and doing a poor job of hiding it. "See you."

* * *

Back in his flat, Hyunjin let his forehead fall against the bathroom mirror, cursing himself. "He was going to kiss you," he told his reflection. "The only person who’s given any kind of a damn about your long-term safety since you were ten was going to  _ kiss you _ , and you just got up and left."

He sighed, touching his lips gently. He didn’t even know why he hadn’t let Chan do it. It would have been a good thing. It might have been something he wanted, if he’d had time to think about it.

It would have made sure Chan stayed. At least for a little while.

_ That shouldn’t be why you want it _ , a little voice in his head told him.  _ You shouldn’t just want him because you don’t have to take care of yourself when he’s around. Do you even think you could love him, or do you just love the way he makes you feel? _

Hyunjin ignored it. He wandered over to his bed, collapsing onto the covers without undressing, and swallowed a black pill.

And for the first time, for a moment between the nightmares, Hyunjin  _ dreamed _ . Of sunlight,  _ real _ sunlight rather than that of the dome, and of Chan’s lips against his own, and of feeling safe.

Of feeling like he was home.


	5. chapter five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I messed up my chapter splits a little so have a much, much longer chapter than I planned (quarantine is making me somewhat fuzzy in the head). Also, Hyunjin makes himself sick in this chapter, so if that's in any way triggering for you then let me know and I can explain what happens so you don't have to read it!
> 
> -

Chan still wasn’t there when he awoke. Hyunjin was a little grateful for that; he still hadn’t untangled exactly what had happened yesterday. He had been lightheaded, in a good way, when Chan had been so close to him, his breath on Hyunjin’s skin. But somewhere between there and him actually attempting a kiss, something had shifted. Hyunjin just had to figure out  _ what _ .

It wasn’t that he found Chan unattractive; even beneath the  _ strangeness _ of him, the inhumanity, Hyunjin thought he was uncommonly handsome. Living on spaceport expanded one’s horizons, he supposed. And Chan was kind, and gentle, and treated him well. He seemed committed to helping him.

So what was wrong?

Hyunjin sighed, rolling out of bed. He’d go out. See if he could pick up any translation work to soothe the preliminary itch he could feel from the lack of stims. It wasn’t anything serious, not nearly so bad as it had been mere days ago, but there was something there.

He spent around six hours in the Robotics Quarter, settling disputes over code. His jaw ached from the end of it from spouting threads of zeroes and ones as fast as he could in order to translate the human stallholder’s words to the androids trying to buy parts. He hated arguing in binary. It didn’t help that he had been sweating the whole time, stumbling over strings of consecutive ones as he tried to hide his twitching fingers. Chan would be there when he got home, he told himself desperately. Chan would help.

But his flat was still empty when he returned, the dome flushed pink outside. Hyunjin tried to slow his breathing. He’d take a cool shower, he decided, draw some of the warmth out of his skin. That would help.

Even with the water running over his shoulders, the fever grew worse, his skin starting to prickle and burn like his nerve endings were exposed to the air. Chan would be back soon, he told himself. Chan would help.

But what if Chan didn’t come back in time? Hyunjin didn’t think he could stand even an hour of this, let alone a night. And what if he passed out from the fever before he could take his nightly dose of Pitch, left swallowed in his own nightmares again?

He’d taken three orange tablets before he could stop himself. They started to soothe him unreasonably fast, faster than they could possibly work, and Hyunjin wondered as he lay on the floor, twitching faintly, how much of it was simply a placebo.

He was crying on the bathroom floor when Chan came back, vomit splattered on the tile a little where he’d missed the sink ten minutes ago. He hadn’t felt nauseous, just…  _ guilty _ . He’d been trying to get himself off these, and then one moment of weakness? He’d thought himself in circles about the placebo effect of the pills, wondering if he’d really had time to absorb them yet, wondering if Chan would be angry or disappointed, wondering if they’d disturb the effects of the Pitch at all-

He’d stuck two fingers down his throat until he gagged, nausea rising faster than he expected.

And then he’d just started crying.

"Hyunjin?" Chan called from outside the door. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," Hyunjin croaked. He had to close his eyes against the sight of Chan, otherworldly and glowing electric violet, too bright for the headache he was sporting.

"Oh, no. Ok. Come here."

Hyunjin waved him away. "I’m really gross," he muttered. "I got sick on my shirt."

"Take it off and hand it here, I’ll put it with your laundry while you take a shower," Chan suggested gently, and Hyunjin’s heart ached. He was just so  _ good _ .

"I only showered half an hour ago," he complained vaguely. "I was trying to cool down."

"Did it work?"

"Not… not really." Hyunjin sighed. He was going to start crying again as soon as he said this, he could feel it. "I felt… bad. And I tried, Chan, I really did try but I just  _ needed _ them and-"

"I saw the packets on the floor," Chan interrupted quietly. "I know."

"I tried to throw them up," Hyunjin said weakly. The argument didn’t seem to hold much weight when he said it out loud, but he had  _ tried _ .

"Do you want me to take them away? The stims?"

Hyunjin nodded frantically, sobbing a little, and Chan sighed, sitting down next to him on the cold floor. "You- you need help, Hyunjin. You know that, don’t you?"

"I do," Hyunjin whispered, looking down at the tiles. "I’m sorry."

"There’s nothing to be sorry for, Hyunjin, I just- I want to make you better. I wish I could, I wish I could stay and help you every time you needed me until this was over for you, but-"

"You can’t." Hyunjin pulled his knees to his chest, curling in on his ribcage to stop it hurting. "I know you can’t."

"I can help you find someone who can help you properly, a- a doctor, or something, I want to see you  _ healing _ , Hyunjin-"

"I can’t afford the doctors here," Hyunjin told him tiredly. "They hike up the prices for humans. Think we’re all loaded."

"Then we’ll go somewhere else," Chan said, reaching for his hand. "You and I, we can go wherever we like. Away from all this. If- if you wanted to."

Hyunjin stayed silent. He didn’t know what to say to that, didn’t know how to process the idea of leaving Frontier with a man he barely knew who sold him nightmares. "I’m going to take a shower," he said eventually, and felt Chan’s hand begin to slip from his own. He held it tight. "Will you stay? Tonight." He finally met his eyes, pupils so big Hyunjin thought he could drown in them, amethyst shining in their depths. Chan nodded, and Hyunjin did his best to smile.

Hyunjin crawled into bed immediately after his shower, watching Chan from across the room. He smiled from his usual perch on Hyunjin’s desk until Hyunjin patted the bed beside him. "I kind of want a hug," he said sheepishly, and Chan curled up under the covers, holding Hyunjin close. Chan made him feel so  _ safe _ , Hyunjin realised, despite everything.

"Why are you here, Chan?" he asked before he could hold the words back. He hadn’t meant to ask. Hadn’t meant to push.

"What do you mean?" Chan’s voice was low and soft in his ear, and Hyunjin pulled away a little so that he could look at him properly. Chan’s hands hovered on his waist even as Hyunjin drew out of his embrace.

"What- why me? I’m not stupid, Chan, I know I’m not the only person you’re selling these pills to, but… I’m guessing you’re not… like this. With any of them."

"No," Chan agreed. "I’m not."

"Then why me? What did I do?"

Chan sighed softly. It was a wistful sound, not frustrated or impatient, and Hyunjin waited for him to speak. "I could… I could smell you, that night. When you walked in. You were carrying so much  _ fear _ , Hyunjin, and I was hungry, and…" he laughed, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. "And then I saw you. And you were just…  _ beautiful _ . So lovely, and so afraid, and just… right there, and I… I wanted that, I suppose. Just wanted to be near it for a while." Hyunjin watched him smile as though the memory was sweet to him. "You’re magnetic, Hyunjin," he murmured, turning to face him again. "It surprises me that no one’s ever told you that before."

"People don’t tend to speak to me that way."

"They should. You deserve to know that you’re beautiful." Hyunjin didn’t know what to do with the way Chan looked at him then. So fragile, so honest, so  _ desperate _ . As if Hyunjin were made of glass, fracturing into pieces before his eyes. As if he couldn’t stand the idea that no one had said such lovely things to Hyunjin in a long, long time.

So Hyunjin kissed him. He pulled himself closer, back into Chan’s arms, feeling the brush of Chan’s teeth against his lips as he kissed him back.

"I thought I’d pushed too far," Chan murmured against his jaw as he pulled away, leaning down to kiss Hyunjin’s neck. "With what I did before."

"I just-" Hyunjin began, struggling to find the words he wanted. "I just needed time, I-"

He felt Chan’s mouth leave his skin, breath hovering against his ear. "Is this- if this is too much, Hyunjin, I can-"

"No," Hyunjin told him quickly. "Not too much. Keep going. Please."

Chan laughed softly, biting down carefully on Hyunjin’s shoulder where his shirt had slipped, gentle enough that he didn’t break the skin. "You’re so beautiful," he murmured, hands pushing the hem up his stomach. " _ Gods _ , you’re beautiful, Hyunjin."

"I’ll leave with you," Hyunjin gasped as Chan’s fingertips grazed his ribs. "As soon as I can pack everything up, I’ll go. Anywhere."

Chan paused for a moment, hands settling on Hyunjin’s skin. His eyes were so lovely, Hyunjin thought. Dark and sweet and shining as Earth fruit he’d only seen in photographs. "Anywhere," Chan repeated, and when their lips met again, Hyunjin felt like he might be dreaming.

* * *

There was a note at Hyunjin’s bedside in the morning.  _ I’m sorry I had to go,  _ it read.  _ I wanted to stay beside you, but duty calls. I’ll see you tonight. _

Hyunjin couldn’t help but smile as he read it. They were going to leave together, get out of Frontier, away from the bars and the neon and the glow of the dome. Just the two of them.

But first, he supposed, he should set about saying some goodbyes. There weren’t many people here who mattered to him, but Jisung had told him not to disappear without warning again. Hyunjin didn’t want to worry him.

So he set off towards the Floral Quarter; it was a beautiful day, the dome bright with simulated sunlight, the scent of the flowers hitting him long before their colours were in sight.

The crowds seemed unusually restless today, he noticed, walking in huddles and clusters rather than alone, whispering to one another.

"I heard there are hundreds of them."

"I heard thousands!"

"How long will they stay? I don’t want soldiers here."

Soldiers? The Frontier had never housed soldiers before. It was a strictly neutral zone in any conflict, accepting neither soldiers nor refugees. That particular law was the reason Hyunjin tried so hard to hide exactly which colony he’d been raised in. As someone fleeing a war zone, he wouldn’t have been welcome.

He didn’t see any sign of soldiers until almost nightfall. Jisung had abandoned his stall in favour of spending the day with him, dragging him home for a meal and laughing as Hyunjin finally caved and attempted to eat live beetles.

"I’ll be sad to see you go, Hyunjin," he had said, and Hyunjin had embraced him briefly. Jisung had been a good friend over the years. It was a shame that had to end. But Hyunjin had been offered an escape, a fresh start, and he had to take it.

As he was wandering home, taking a long-winded, meandering path through the streets to take in the sights, a helmet caught his eye. There was a group of them, sitting at a late-night stall, drinking and talking as if it were daylight. Nocturnal, Hyunjin thought. That would explain why he hadn’t seen any of them during the day.

He turned his head to get a better look at the armour they were wearing, and his heart stopped in his chest.

He knew the shape of those helmets. The hardened frills on the shoulders. The way the plates clicked and creaked as they moved.

Hyunjin couldn’t breathe.

He wasn’t sure how he got home; he must have stumbled through the streets, half running as though he thought they’d follow him, slamming the door to his flat behind him and wedging his chair under the handle with shaking hands. No one would get in. They wouldn’t find him. They wouldn’t.

Rihites. There had been  _ Rihite soldiers _ aboard the Frontier. Drinking and talking and sitting in full view like their armour wasn’t stained red beyond compare. Like they hadn’t taken Hyunjin’s life to pieces before his eyes.

_ He was under the floor, his mother’s hand tight over his mouth to stop him crying, footsteps above them, the creak and shift of that armour like oaks in a storm, the pipes burning his skin red- _

Hyunjin bit down on his hand to stop himself from screaming. He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t relive that.

_ Their faces above him as the floor was torn away, screams and screams and screams as he was pulled away from his mother and thrown to the floor, her feet twitching as she was held above the ground, telling him to run, please run, get away- _

He pulled himself across the floor, legs shaking too much to stand, reaching for the Pitch. He needed it, needed someone else’s nightmares to cover up his own, push them down, make it so he never had to see them again. His hands were shaking as he poured half the bottle into his palm. Would one be enough? To block out the horror when it was so fresh in his mind, to take his mind away, far away from this?

Hyunjin took five.

And the world fell away from beneath him.

* * *

The room Hyunjin awoke in was white. His head was still foggy, vision blurring and drifting, and all he could really make sense of was the colour. He tried to turn, the motion setting off a wave of disconnected nausea, and he groaned.

"Hyunjin?"

"Chan?" he slurred.

"Oh, thank the gods. Hyunjin- Oh." It sounded like Chan might be crying, and Hyunjin tried to find him, reaching blindly until a hand took his. "Hyunjin. How could you- I don’t understand, Hyunjin, I told you to take  _ one _ , why would you- and then you put a chair against the door? What were you thinking, Hyunjin? Was it- Did I do something wrong, did I move too fast, did I-"

"Had to make it stop," Hyunjin managed to say. He couldn’t quite feel his tongue. "I  _ saw  _ them, Chan. Had to make it  _ stop _ ."

"I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to sedate him again for now," another voice said. "We can’t have him getting agitated when he’s still in this state."

"Ok," Chan said quietly.

Hyunjin felt a slight sting, and the white faded away.

* * *

The second time he came to, Hyunjin was more aware of the fact that he was in a hospital. He could count the ceiling tiles this time, vision clearer than it had been, and he hissed at the pain in his head as he tried to pull himself into a sitting position.

"No- Hyunjin, let me." Chan was beside him in an instant, pressing buttons so that the bed folded a little, pushing Hyunjin upright. He looked hungry, eyes reddened from tears or exhaustion, and Hyunjin reached for his hand.

"Hi," he said softly, and watched Chan’s face crumple a little before he regained his composure.

"Hi," Chan replied. "Can I-" he sighed. "What the hell happened, Hyunjin? I came home and you were- you were just on the floor and you weren’t breathing, Hyunjin, you  _ died _ and I- I thought everything was fine, I thought I was going to finish dealing with those Rihites and you were going to pack and we were going to go-"

"Rihites?" Hyunjin asked distantly. "That’s where you’ve been going during the day? To the Rihites?"

"Yes- they have so many nightmares, they need us, but- why does that matter, Hyunjin?"

"You’ve been… helping them. Giving them Pitch."

"Hyunjin, I don’t understand."

"Stop."

"What?"

"Stop giving it to them." There was a roaring in his ears now, blind and angry and filling his head as he thought of Chan handing out those black glass bottles to murderers. "Stop helping them."

"Why would I do that? They’ve suffered, Hyunjin, their dreams are-"

"Their dreams are what they deserve," Hyunjin said savagely, and he watched Chan pull back a little, frowning. "Because I dream about  _ them _ , Chan. I dream about the day they took Sera 5. I dream about my mother and I hiding underneath the floor until Rihites dragged us out and snapped her neck in front of me." He stopped, breathing hard enough that he was struggling to speak. He’d never said this out loud. Twelve years and he’d never said it to anyone. "I was  _ ten _ , and they dropped her body in front of me and left me screaming and alone and waiting to die. Any nightmares they have, they  _ deserve _ ."

And for a moment, Chan said nothing. When he did speak, his voice was soft. "They dream of their loved ones being tortured, Hyunjin. Of camps where their brothers and sisters and children were taken and starved and beaten until they couldn’t walk. Sera 5 was taken by slaves, Hyunjin. Not soldiers. Just people, told that their families would be safe if they obeyed orders." Hyunjin was silent. Chan didn’t give him time to think of anything to say. "Want to tell me why you overdosed?"

"I didn’t mean to."

"But you did, so  _ why _ , Hyunjin?"

Hyunjin looked away. "I- I saw them. The Rihites. In the street. And I was scared, I was so  _ scared _ , Chan, and it was like it was happening all over again and I couldn’t breathe and I just- I needed to shut it out."

"You could have just taken one, Hyunjin, one has been working for you so far, I don’t understand-"

"Of course you don’t," Hyunjin snapped. "You don’t know how it feels to see something like that behind your eyes. It never- it never  _ stops _ , and I just wanted to be sure, just once, that I wouldn’t dream of it." He closed his eyes. "I didn’t want to die. I just- I needed my head to be  _ quiet _ . Just once."

For a moment, Chan said nothing. "I took back the rest of the bottle," he told Hyunjin eventually. "Since you can’t be responsible with them."

"Chan-"

"You weren’t breathing, Hyunjin. You were dead on the floor, and if you happened to be with someone who  _ couldn’t  _ pass through walls, you’d still be dead." His tone was flat and ugly, and Hyunjin shrank from it a little. "I have work to do."

He left without another word, and Hyunjin didn’t try to make him stay.


	6. chapter six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! I had to adjust the number of chapters so I didn't give you a really short one tomorrow, which means that only the epilogue remains after this!
> 
> -

The hospital discharged him a few days later. His bills had been paid by the Cerilian who’d visited him, they said, and Hyunjin nodded mutely. He returned home. Sat in his flat as the light faded, feeling oddly numb. It was the sedatives, he supposed. Blocking everything out.

He went to sleep, and woke up screaming within minutes.

He didn’t try again. Just sat down in the shower without bothering to undress, letting the scent of chlorine fill his head as the water soaked his shirt.

* * *

As dawn broke, he could barely keep his eyes open. The sedatives were starting to wear off properly, he thought, the prickling sensation of withdrawal returning along with the exhaustion, and Hyunjin laughed as he checked his drawer. Chan really had taken his stims away. He didn’t really know what he was supposed to do about that. He could go out and buy more.

The guilt from even  _ thinking _ about that was a little too much for him to bear.

Hyunjin put on his shoes anyway.

He was halfway to his usual supplier when violet lightning touched his peripheral vision. "Hyunjin." Chan. Of course it was Chan.

"What do you want?" he asked tiredly, turning to face him in the pale light.

"Where are you off to so early?" Chan asked.

Hyunjin sighed. He saw no point in lying. "To buy stims," he said bluntly. "Since I can’t sleep anymore."

Chan’s face fell, eyes sad and achingly gentle, and Hyunjin looked away. He didn’t want to be guilted right now.

"I wanted to say I was sorry," Chan told him softly. "For taking the Pitch away. I can- we can regulate it, I can just give you one pill at a time and I can hold the rest back, I-"

"For how long, Chan? Until I find something else to get addicted to? Until the glow wears off and you realise you’ve been sleeping with a broken mess who’s only still kicking because he feels guilty about wasting the effort his mother put into keeping him alive?"

"Hyunjin-"

"There’s no point to this, Chan. To us. Let it go." Hyunjin started walking, heading further up the street, but he’d barely made it five steps before he felt a hand around his wrist, pulling him back so that Chan could reach up and kiss him, sweet and slow and desperate in the dawn.

"I love you," Chan told him against his lips. "Surely that matters. Surely that means there’s a point to it."

It took Hyunjin a moment to realise the itch in his skin was fading, fingers no longer twitching as Chan’s hands soothed him, and he pulled away. "I didn’t say you could do that," he said weakly.

"Let me help you, Hyunjin. I’ve- I’ve been looking, there are free addiction clinics on a lot of planets out past the Cirinth Cluster, we could take our pick. Anywhere."

Hyunjin let out a shaky breath. He hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected Chan to come back for him after Hyunjin had thrown so much venom at him, had been nothing but trouble, had drained his pockets from hospital bills.

"When would we leave?" he asked. He wanted to, he realised. Wanted to let Chan lead him away from here, keep him safe, help him get better. Wanted to let himself be loved, after the life he’d lived.

"Soon," Chan told him. "Tomorrow, if you like. I just…" he paused, thumb brushing the skin of Hyunjin’s wrist. "I want you to meet someone, first."

"Who?"

"Trust me?"

Hyunjin could feel his heart beginning to pound in his chest. He did trust Chan. He did. He wouldn’t have let him start helping if he didn’t trust him, wouldn’t have let him take away his stims, wouldn’t have slowly healing bite marks littered along his neck and the bones of his hips.

"Yes," he said softly. "I trust you."

"Then come with me."

* * *

Chan led him downtown, keeping ahold of his hand the entire time. Hyunjin was glad of it. It made him feel secure, Chan’s hand in his own, and he wondered for the first time how exactly he’d fallen so fast. Because he did  _ love _ Chan, he realised. There was more than simple relief connected with the thought of him; there was warmth. Sweetness.

Hyunjin didn’t think he’d ever felt quite so strongly for anyone, and the thought left him feeling so lost for a moment that he stopped in the street, Chan’s hand slipping from his own.

"Hyunjin? Is everything ok?"

Hyunjin smiled weakly. "Yeah," he said, reaching for Chan’s hand again. "Everything’s fine."

He stopped smiling at the sight of the little building Chan had led him to. There was a helmet on a stick outside, markings clear and bright. Rihite.

"Chan, no. I can’t," Hyunjin said, trying to back away. "I can’t, please, I-"

"They won’t hurt you," Chan promised. "They can’t even walk, Hyunjin. They won’t hurt you." He paused, running a hand gently over Hyunjin’s spine. "I wouldn’t bring you near anyone who might hurt you, Hyunjin. Please, trust me on that."

And Hyunjin did.

The main room of the little house was dark, and out of the corner of his eye, Hyunjin saw Chan breathe in slowly, beginning to glow a little. He was feeding, Hyunjin realised.

"If they’re asleep then we can come back later, it’s-"

"Chan?" The voice from the corner was low, rough from more than just sleep, and Hyunjin twitched at the sound of it.

"It’s me, Kr. I brought the friend I was talking about."

"The human?"

Chan looked at Hyunjin, prompting him to speak with a smile. Hyunjin couldn’t. "Yes, the human," Chan said after the silence had stretched a beat too long. "Can I light a lamp?"

"Yes, of course," the Rihite said softly. Kr, Chan had called them. Such a gentle sound.

Hyunjin stood frozen as Chan wandered to a side table, flicking a switch and bathing the room in a quiet, amber light. And there they were, a shadow in the corner, half asleep in their chair.

"Is that you, human? Hyunjin, Chan called you."

"Don’t say my name," Hyunjin said without thinking. Chan looked sideways at him, expression hard to decipher.

"Of course," Kr said quietly. "I’m sorry, I- I suppose it’s easier on my part than yours to be familiar. You may call me Kr, if you wish. Would you come a little closer? My eyes were damaged from smoke during the war, and it has been so very long since I saw a human."

Hyunjin took a deep breath, stepping forwards as much as he could bear. Kr’s eyes shone in the light of the lamp, and Hyunjin looked away. His heart was beating fast, too fast, and those  _ eyes _ -

"I can’t do this," he said to no one in particular. "Chan- I can’t, get me out of here, please, I-"

"Ok," Chan said gently. "Ok, let’s go outside. Kr, I-"

"Don’t worry, Chan. I understand."

Hyunjin pushed Chan off him once they were outside, sitting down heavily in the street and trying desperately to keep control of his breathing. He failed, and barely a minute later he was sobbing, unable to pull air into his lungs, twitching and crying out whenever Chan tried to touch him.

"Hyunjin- I’m sorry, I thought-"

"Stop talking," Hyunjin gasped. "In a minute, just-"

Chan nodded, sitting down beside him. Hyunjin could feel his gaze, eyes wide with worry, and he wished he could explain that this wasn’t Chan’s fault.

"Can we go home?" he asked in a small voice once the panic attack was over, exhaustion settling into his bones.

"Of course," Chan murmured, pressing a soft kiss to his temple. "I just need to go and say goodbye, ok?"

"Ok."

Chan disappeared into the house, emerging again a few minutes later with a little slip of paper in his hands. "Kr asked me to give you this," he said, handing it over. "It’s their comms signature. If you ever- if you want to talk, or if you feel like you’re ready, they’d like to get to know you."

Hyunjin looked down at the piece of paper, the messy, childish handwriting. "This is in Terran," he remarked.

"They’ve been working on it. They want to learn to communicate without translators."

Hyunjin didn’t know what to say to that. He pushed the paper deep into his pocket in lieu of a reply, and took Chan’s hand. They walked home in silence, the spaceport coming alive around them. Would it be the last time he saw it, Hyunjin wondered? Was this his last sunrise here?

He didn’t ask until they were back in his flat, Chan holding him close in bed; his warmth was soothing, and Hyunjin felt the fear slipping away.

"Did you mean it?" he asked softly. "About leaving tomorrow."

"If you want to," Chan told him. "I thought you had to pack."

"Not really," Hyunjin admitted. "There’s not much I want to keep."

"Then we can leave whenever you want. We can just pick up transport out to Cirinth and take a connection from there. We can decide where to go on the way."

"Ok," Hyunjin whispered. This would be it, he realised. If he left now, he’d never come back.

And the more he thought about that, the more Hyunjin realised that that might be exactly what he wanted.

He rolled out of bed, Chan letting out a slight groan of protest as he did so, and pulled out his suitcase.

The two of them boarded a transport vessel barely two hours later. Hyunjin couldn’t help but laugh as he stepped into the room Chan had booked for them; it was opulent by space travel standards, real feathers in the pillows on the bed and non-fluorescent lighting. Hyunjin sank into it, burying his face in the softness of it until he couldn’t breathe. He rolled onto his back with a sigh.

"I’m going to spend the entire trip here," he said, and Chan laughed as he lay down beside him, shifting so that his weight rested above Hyunjin, nose brushing his cheek.

"I like that idea," he said teasingly, and Hyunjin’s breath caught in his throat until a stray feather set Chan sneezing, and he laughed and laughed and laughed.

* * *

They’d go to Rinth, they decided eventually, the busiest planet in the system just beyond the cluster. It had a high organic population, for Chan’s sake, along with a number of androids Hyunjin didn’t quite believe.

"It’s the best place in the galaxy for android rights," Chan explained. "It’s paradise for them compared to other planets. But there are still plenty of lawsuits and campaigns ongoing, and plenty of room for binary translators. I think you’ll-" Hyunjin interrupted him with a kiss, laughing at his expression of surprise. "What was that for?"

"For being good to me," Hyunjin said simply, and Chan flushed, looking at Hyunjin like he couldn’t quite believe he’d gotten so lucky. Hyunjin knew how he felt. "What about clinics?" he asked quietly. It wasn’t something he really wanted to discuss, but the voyage had already been fraught with it; the withdrawal symptoms had faded somewhat, but not totally, and Chan had almost lost his temper when another one of the passengers had wandered door to door, attempting to sell stims to help with travel lag.

Chan was still holding back the bottle of Pitch, too, giving Hyunjin one pill a night when he needed it. It made Hyunjin’s heart ache when Chan asked him to close his eyes so he could hide it, but he understood. It would get better.

"There are plenty. They don’t seem to be so taboo there, which is nice. They’re not secret, or seedy, they just seem like… they want to help people. Like they understand that people make mistakes."

Hyunjin sighed, settling down with his head on Chan’s shoulder. "We’re going to be happy here, aren’t we?" he murmured.

"I think we are," Chan replied, and as he kissed the top of Hyunjin’s head, an announcement rang out.

_ "Travellers, we are now arriving on Rinth. We hope your journey with us has been pleasant, and we wish you safe travels." _

"Ready?" Chan asked. Hyunjin nodded, doing his best to ignore the way his heart hammered in his chest. A new planet. A fresh start.

They were greeted by the sight of skyscraper after skyscraper, all overflowing with green; winged creatures the size of shuttle crafts roosted in them, throwing themselves off into glides above the wide, raised streets where people walked without even taking note of the passing of their shadows. Beyond the skyscrapers, through gaps between them, Hyunjin could see something he thought might be a sea, waves rising to ten or eleven times his height and collapsing gently down, washing beneath the streets and carrying sparkling silver creatures with it, setting the whole city glimmering.

"It’s  _ beautiful _ ," he breathed, and Chan squeezed his hand, leading him down the walkway onto the landing ground where a shuttle waited to take them the short distance to safety.

"It’s home," Chan said gently as their feet finally touched the ground. The gravity was lighter here, Hyunjin thought. It explained the waves, the way they drifted like cotton.

"It’s home," he agreed, and when Chan smiled in response, sharp teeth glinting in the sunlight -  _ real _ sunlight - Hyunjin didn’t think he’d ever been so happy.


	7. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! The end! Thank you to everyone who's read this, and especially those who left comments and kudos; you brighten my day.
> 
> I guess... I actually have to work on my longer projects now...
> 
> -

"I’m home!" Hyunjin called, pulling off his shoes in the doorway of their apartment. "Chan?"

He received no reply. Perhaps he’d gone for a walk, Hyunjin thought. He did that a lot these days, wandering for an hour or so beside the sea, watching the ocean rise and collapse down like something breathing. It seemed to calm him. He’d been worried about something lately, holding it close to his chest, and Hyunjin had decided that the best course of action was simply to wait. Chan would tell him when he was ready. Hyunjin trusted him.

He sighed as he started making tea, thinking over his day. It had been… strange. The translation work itself had been simple enough, no overly verbose lawyers and interrupting clients, but the context… he had found that difficult.

Wandering into the study, he pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk.  _ Old Life _ , it was labelled, and neither of them opened it often. But today, there was something Hyunjin needed.

He was still turning the little piece of paper over in his fingers when Chan came home, bringing in the smell of salt and the strange, bitter aroma of the flowers that floated on the surface of the water. Hyunjin had been convinced to eat one once, crystallised in something tart and brilliant yellow, and he actually hadn’t disliked it.

"Everything ok?" Chan asked, leaning up to kiss him quickly. "What you got there?"

"The paper Kr gave me," Hyunjin admitted, and Chan’s eyes widened.

"Oh," he said. "I didn’t think you’d ever look at that again. What brought that on?"

"I had a job today… an android wanted me to help her talk to the son of the family who’d once owned her. He had… not been kind, apparently. But she was desperate to talk to him, so I agreed to help."

"She didn’t speak his language? After working for the family?"

"She’d deleted all the files when she was first set free. Cleansing, she said."

"Fair enough. But she wanted to talk to him?"

"Yeah," Hyunjin said softly. "And all she wanted me to say - all of it, Chan, nothing else - was that she forgave him. And he kept saying that he was sorry, so sorry, and she just-" he broke off, struggling to hold back tears. "She just kept saying ‘I forgive you.’ The whole time. And I don’t know, I just… It hit me that maybe- maybe this is something I need to do. To try, at least."

"Oh, Hyunjin." Chan wrapped his arms around him, letting Hyunjin sob into his shoulder. "They’d love it, I’m sure, if you called them, but maybe- maybe not today? I think maybe you need some rest."

"Yeah," Hyunjin agreed through a sob. "I just- It’s been fifteen years since it all happened, Chan, and I still don’t- I don’t feel like it’s over. I want it to be over."

"I know,” Chan soothed, running a hand over his hair. “I know."

* * *

They spent most of the evening on their sofa, doing very little; they watched the two suns set from their balcony, dipping below the horizon and colouring the water richer shades of red than Hyunjin had ever seen. It wasn’t something he’d ever get tired of, seeing a real sun fall through the sky. No dome, no simulated sky. Just clouds and rings of chemicals between him and infinite space.

He watched Chan disappear into the bathroom as he got settled into bed, emerging with a single black pill in his palm. He still kept them locked away, even after all this time; he’d apologised for it more than once, explaining that it wasn’t Hyunjin’s fault, he trusted him, but he’d been so afraid, so  _ sick _ at the way Hyunjin had been limp in his arms, skin too cold for a human being, chest still and heart silent. 

"It’s ok," Hyunjin had told him, kissing away the tears from his cheeks. "I understand. I love you."

Looking at the pill in Chan’s palm, Hyunjin shook his head.

Chan frowned. "Are you- you don’t want to take it? Are you sure?"

"I want to try," Hyunjin explained. "I don’t- I don’t know if I’ll be ok without it. But with the therapy going as well as it has been, and- I don’t know, after today… I want to try. Leave it on the table so if I have a nightmare I can take it."

"Ok," Chan said slowly, placing the little pill down on the wood. "If you have a nightmare and I’m not there, come find me, ok? I want to be able to help."

Hyunjin laughed. "Trust me, you’ll know. I’ll probably start screaming." Chan’s frown grew deeper, and Hyunjin reached for his hands. "It’s ok, Chan. I want to learn to live without these. Getting off the stims was a first step, but... I want to be  _ better _ ."

"You’ll stay, though?" Chan asked, barely audible. "If you don’t need the Pitch anymore. If you don’t need me to get it for you. You’ll stay?"

Hyunjin fell silent for a moment. "Is this…" he began eventually. "Is this why you’ve been so quiet lately? You think I’m going to leave you?"

Chan sighed, sitting down on the bed by Hyunjin’s knees. "I just… I love you, Hyunjin. And I know that I loved you first, and I fell harder than you did then, and… I never knew how much of what you felt was because I made you need me." He closed his eyes as though the words hurt him. "I never liked it. Feeling like I was manipulating you with the pills, or… or using them to  _ keep _ you, and I just… you’ve been getting so much better lately, you don’t need my help with the stims at all, and-" he sighed, suddenly looking so very small. "I know it’s stupid, and cruel, and petty to be  _ worried  _ about you getting better, but… I want you to stay, Hyunjin. I just want you to stay."

"Chan… look at me." Hyunjin watched him lift his head, eyes heavy with melancholy, and he shuffled further down the bed so that he could cup Chan’s face in his hands. "You could take that entire bottle of pills and throw it into the ocean right now and I’d stay with you." Chan’s eyes widened, but Hyunjin didn’t let him process long enough to speak. "Even if I still have nightmares. Even if I can never sleep again, I would  _ stay with you _ . Because, yes, maybe we didn’t have the right start, but I love you, Chan. I’ve never loved anyone like you. And maybe you’re right, maybe I was too dependent on you back then, maybe I couldn’t see past it. But it’s been three years since then, Chan. Three years. I have a  _ life _ now. A job, and friends, and a beautiful place to live, and I still want you with me."

"Oh," Chan said weakly, eyes shining with tears. "When you put it like that."

Hyunjin kissed him gently, trying to convey all the sweetness he could in a moment, pulling away to wipe Chan’s tears away. "Next time you feel like this, talk to me. I promise I can reassure you that I’m not going anywhere."

"Good," Chan murmured as Hyunjin kissed the tip of his nose. "I don’t know what I’d do if you did."

"You’ll never have to find out. I promise. Now come to bed properly, I’m cold."

Chan laughed as he climbed into bed, wriggling closer to pull Hyunjin into his arms. He didn’t really sleep, Hyunjin knew, but he still seemed to like being beside Hyunjin in the night, holding him close.

"That better?" he asked against Hyunjin’s neck, pressing a gentle kiss to the skin there once he’d finished speaking.

"Much," Hyunjin agreed.

"I love you," Chan murmured, shifting somehow closer, and Hyunjin smiled against his hair.

"I love you, too."

Hyunjin didn’t know whether he’d manage to sleep through the night without the Pitch. He didn’t know if he’d wake up screaming into the pillow, Chan struggling to soothe him as he fought against assailants who weren’t there.

But he’d try. He’d do his best to fall asleep in the arms of the man he loved - who loved him in return - and begin a new day. He’d send a message to Kr. Learn to understand, even if he could never find it in him to forgive.

Three years had changed so much in him. But there was still room for more.

And Hyunjin was ready for it.


End file.
